CELL SUSPENSION OF SPIRULINA PLATENSIS PARTIALLY ATTENUATES ALLOXAN INDUCED ALTERATIONS IN CARBOHYDRATE AND LIPID METABOLISM IN DIABETIC MICE

The present study evaluates the hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of supplementation of cell suspension of Spirulina platensis (SP) in alloxan (AXN) induced hyperglycemic mice. Diabetes was induced by intra-peritoneal administration of AXN. Mice with blood glucose level above 200 mg/dl were divided into Group I (control), Group II (diabetic control), Group III (diabetic control mice fed with SP), and Group IV (control mice fed with SP). General physiology, fasting blood glucose level, oral glucose tolerance test, liver glycogen content and lipid profile were recorded in test subjects. In hyperglycemic mice, a significant (P < 0.05) fractional increase in food intake (41.13%), water consumption (190.56%), fasting blood glucose level (273.2%), total cholesterol (144.12%), triglyceride (124.58%), very low density lipoprotein (124.59%) and low density lipoprotein (265.4%) with concomitant decrease in body weight (25.78%), liver glycogen (10.57%) and high density lipoprotein (37.74%) when compared with control at the end of the experiment but recuperation in these parameters were observed (P < 0.05) when subjected to SP treatment. SP resulted in fractional increased in body weight, liver glycogen and high density lipoprotein by 33.08%, 46.36% and 47.78 respectively, and dropped off food intake and water consumption to 19.76% and 61.76% respectively while fasting blood glucose level, total cholesterol, triglyceride, very low density lipoprotein and low density lipoprotein went down to 58.55%, 49.74%, 47.68%, 47.68% and 60.02% respectively. These findings validate that SP maintains general physiological status, glucose metabolism and lipid profile of diabetic mice and hence warrants further detailed dose-dependent studies to understand its mechanism of action